A Mid-Century Modern home on the prairie in Fairfield, Iowa, is also a Maharishi Vastu home. The owner, who had been thinking about the details of her home for years, engaged Vastu architect Jon Lipman AIA to make her ideas a reality. Lipman commented she was a dream client with great taste and clear vision.

She finds that living in Vastu is everything she had hoped. “There’s more to Maharishi Vastu than due-east orientation. I feel protected in this house. It provides a stable base for feeling happiness everywhere I go.”

Her main desire was to infuse the house with light, and loves it when the early morning sunrise produces light like this.

The central section of her house has clerestory windows on the east, south and west sides, which provides a rich play of sunlight inside the house throughout the day, as well as an ever-changing view of the sky. “The sun—when rising and throughout the day—and the moon at night, turns the house into moving art.”

Her foyer provides, at first, a prospect, or protected view of the home, which then expands as you step into the 13-foot-high great room. In the foyer, the walls have plaster with crystal particles that sparkle in the rising sun. Wall colors everywhere else feature artwork by family members and local artisans. To address the few areas without a window, she included solar light tubes for a soft illumination.

The kitchen has a large east-facing window that looks into the owner’s prairie garden. “Cooking in the correct corner of the house feels right,” she says, “as opposed to having an office in that area and maybe feeling hungry all the time.”

The master suite is her sanctuary, with seven windows and a private covered porch. In fact, the entire back of the house is a protective covered porch, with the enclosure of the central portion switched from screening to Plexiglass in the winter.

38 windows in the house work brilliantly to circulate fresh air, while bedrooms and meditation room incorporate natural, non-toxic materials and fabric, per Vastu guidelines. “My sleep is fabulous.”

Besides the experience of silence that is often a benefit of Vastu, the owner also made certain to install quiet appliances, including her refrigerator and radon fans. Heating is from hot-water radiators of aluminum, and cooling is with mini-splits targeting each room, so there is no duct noise.

Her artistic attention to detail includes design elements on the Vastu fence, with rails incrementally wider toward the ground. The east and north gates were crafted by an artist-cousin, with a prairie-appropriate whimsy. “The fence, with gates, is very protective. It feels absolutely right having it around me.”

Overall, the owner urges anyone thinking of building to take the necessary steps for Maharishi Vastu. “It makes a 100 percent difference.”

Developers, builders, architects and engineers from the Middle East and Asia met together for three days in early April in Istanbul, Turkey, to plan Maharishi Vastu communities. Dr. Eike Hartmann, International Maharishi Vastu director and the five Vastu architects who coordinate regions around the world presented details on various aspects of community design and then led master-planning design workshops.

These working groups produced designs for eight Vastu communities that are planned for the Middle East and Cyprus.

“This included a group of five professionals from Lebanon working together to create four community master plans for that country,” said Jon Lipman, North America region Vastu architect.

After the conference, attendees enjoyed a boat ride on the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara, as well as a tour of the historic old center of Istanbul, one of the world’s ancient, vibrant cities.

The next Vastu conferences is planned for Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Dates to be announced soon.